There’s a story in the Bible (Joshua 10) where in a battle, God caused the earth to stop moving for a short time (i.e., “the sun stood still”), in order to help Israel win the battle they were involved in. Maybe the additional daylight was what they needed. A truly amazing miracle.

I think it happened again today, sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 am, Pacific Time. I was teaching 3rd grade music at school. I thought I had enough planned to fill the time. Turns out I didn’t.

So I found myself looking at the clock – A LOT – and stalling. That is, stalling a roomful of 3rd graders who were beginning to get a little bored.

It was OK at first; I had stuff planned. But while I was halfway through that stuff, well before any 3rd grader was wise to what was going on, I realized it. I was going to run out of stuff before I ran out of time. Because apparently, God had a battle or some other major issue going on somewhere, and needed to stop the earth from revolving for a while, and that affected me. Because every time I looked at the clock, IT HAD BARELY MOVED SINCE THE LAST TIME I LOOKED AT IT. I swear, there were a few times where it may have even gone backwards.

While the earth/sun was apparently standing still over Southern California, I resorted to stalling techniques, such as:

1.  Saying, “That wasn’t too bad. But I really want you guys to know this song well, so let’s sing it again – a few more times. After all, ‘Birthday Boogie’ is a song we’ll probably sing a lot this year.”

2.  Asking who has a birthday in September – and including any relatives, friends or aquaintances who might have birthdays, and even including people who had birthdays in August but weren’t celebrated at school because we hadn’t started yet – all which gave us more opportunities to sing “Birthday Boogie.”

3.  Saying – “I know we went over this yesterday, but let me go over the class rules again with you, just to make sure we all understand them.”

4.  Praying for a fire drill, which of course didn’t happen, because God apparently had another situation going on someplace, which required the earth/sun to stand still in my classroom. He needed me to suck it up and deal with it.

If anyone else was in Southern California on September 14, 2007, between 10 & 10:30 am, and noticed this miracle occurring, I’d love to hear from you.